Why Wack Rappers Are Getting Famous

Let’s just be honest for a moment. Have you ever heard a garbage song on the radio and thought how the heck is this crap getting spins? And then as an afterthought, you think of one of your talented rapper friends or perhaps even yourself and think you should be on the radio instead because you are more talented?

Pay To Play

Well here’s the thing the music industry is a business it isn’t a talent show. You don’t simply get put on all the major radio stations because you’re so awesome. Wanna hear a dirty little secret? A large majority of the music you hear being played on the radio is due to the record labels paying for it by using independent promoters as a loophole in the legal system.

Build A Buzz

Now that’s not to say you can’t get on the radio on your own. But just think about the flood of music radio stations are sent on a daily basis. There’s no way they can listen to it all and you have to stand out from the crowd. And the best way to do that is to build your own buzz.

What’s A Buzz?

A buzz is when you are making a lot of noise with your music and are able to get people to talk about you. When a person mentions you to someone else they will likely forget to check you out. But once you are mentioned to them a 2nd or a 3rd time then they will feel highly compelled to do so.

Attract Like A Magnet

This is how you can get radio stations, magazines, and record labels to really start chomping at the bits. This is called attraction marketing where you position yourself in such a way where you are being sought after opposed to beating everyone’s doors down begging for a favor.

People are much more likely to provide you with opportunities when they see you are taking your music seriously.

I’ll be sharing specific techniques you can use in future articles to help you build your own buzz moving forward so stay tuned!

The Other Part

But here’s the thing, making music is the easy part! The real work comes into play when you start marketing and promoting yourself. I’m talking about months or even years of long hour days of reaching out to people such as potential fans, music directors at commercial and college radio stations, DJ’s, magazines, bloggers, and podcasters. While going out in the real world to local shows where you can network and share your music with others.

This is what most rappers never do and is why they never build a fan base and earn income from their music. So no one ever hears them! Which is the whole point of creating music right?

Why?

This is usually because they are either insecure and scared of rejection, lazy, or prideful and have an entitled mindset that success is owed to them due to their amazing talent. Also, they could have possibly never taken the initiative to learn marketing and promotion as well.

One more major factor is that they set unrealistic expectations for themselves because they likely don’t have a realistic view of how this whole marketing and promotion thing works. They’re expecting to release their project, share it with all their existing friends and family and spam them multiple times a week and somehow, magically go viral in hopes that everyone their tagging in their posts will share their song as well.

Not only does this not work but it typically has the opposite effect because it’s annoying and pisses people off.

Talent Isn’t Enough

Remember that talent isn’t enough! It’s important to be skilled in your craft and to be putting out great music, but you’re never going to build a fanbase until you start working hard marketing and promoting yourself so you can reach hundreds of thousands of people who’ve never heard your music before. And I’m not talking about spamming people with your Youtube and Soundcloud links. That’s not a good look at all lol!

Regardless of how “crappy” someone’s music is on the radio I still have loads of respect for them because I know behind the scenes they have been working their butts off to get where they’re at. You get back what you put in… simple as that.

Have you had success with marketing and promoting your music? Do you understand what promotion and marketing are? Have you run into a brick wall after finishing your project by not knowing what to do next? Let me know in the comments section below!

About cole mize

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Fosho Fosho, These cats need to study marketing like they’re in college. Hit them books son 🙂 , Couple road blocks are budgeting. If you have a small budget you need to focus on what’s more important piece by piece, in order to release in all corners from the streets to the net. Good Stuff COle as always enlightening the MC masses. P.S. Go Wendy Day 🙂

This’s such a great article and i personally feels like you was thinking about me the whole time while writing those articles Lol… i’ve really been down with my music but try to get it out has been such a hook on my throat dealing with my environment and the type of people around me.